A book of broad explanatory power that’s not likely to help mend any fences.
A view of rural America as a font of white privilege—and of resentment that the privileges aren’t greater.
Political scientist Schaller and journalist Waldman open with an example taken straight from the headlines: the uproar over Jason Aldean’s song “Try That in a Small Town,” with its implied promises of retribution in a “fantasy of vigilante violence meted out against urbanites supposedly ready to bring their criminal mayhem to the idyll of rural America.” While it’s true that rural America has been suffering, rural Americans haven’t exactly helped themselves. “There is no demographic group in America as loyal to one political party as rural Whites are to the GOP that gets less out of the deal,” write the authors, showing how this situation arose because no rural political organization exists to make the vast region an object of true interest for either Republicans or Democrats. Schaller and Waldman come close to blaming the victim in that analysis, but, as they painstakingly document, rural white Americans actually enjoy outsize influence in such things as electoral votes, to say nothing of the increasing rightward radicalization of the GOP. It’s no coincidence, they note, that nearly 75% of the votes opposing the certification of Joe Biden for president came from rural congressional districts. There’s a certain vicious circularity at work: With few news sources reaching out to rural audiences, radio is king, and radio is almost invariably hard right in orientation, eager to fuel the resentment that comes from the sense that the “real America” is disappearing in the face of demographic change. So it is that while white rural America is getting poorer, sicker, and more isolated, it’s also getting angrier—and that anger is poisoning the rest of the nation.
A book of broad explanatory power that’s not likely to help mend any fences.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593729144
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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